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A&P has asked a bankruptcy court judge to set aside two key union provisions — bumping rights and full severance pay — after reaching a negotiation impasse with labor groups, USA Today reported today. The supermarket wants to completely eliminate bumping rights, saying that the administrative burden and costs associated with allowing workers to do that are too high and undesirable to would-be buyers of its stores. Bumping rights allow employees who work the longest for the company and at a store slated to close to take the job of a less senior worker at a supermarket that will continue to operate. The other sticking point is the amount of severance pay A&P will pay and when, the documents filed late Tuesday indicate. The supermarket has proposed paying employees who will lose their jobs as part of the bankruptcy 25 percent of the severance they are entitled to on a "timely basis" with a maximum cap of $10 million for all workers. The rest of the severance would be paid later, depending on how much remains after the stores have been sold and what other A&P creditors are due as part of settling the bankruptcy case.

Gospel Light Publications, known for its Sunday school and vacation Bible school curricula, filed for bankruptcy with plans to sell its assets, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Christian media company, founded in 1993, blamed the filing on “a number of unanticipated occurrences during the last nine months” as well as a “long-term slowdown in the Christian publishing market, court papers show. Those unplanned-for events include the bankruptcy filing of one of its biggest customers, the Family Christian retail chain. Gospel Light said the filing forced it to write off $143,000 in expected income. With current business conditions not promising, Gospel Light said that it began looking for buyers this spring. Those efforts yielded a $175,000 offer for its ZDL unit, which publishes Christian literature and provides consulting services in China, from the company’s current minority owner, Pacific Resources International LLC. Pacific’s offer, which is subject to bankruptcy-court approval, would buy out Gospel Light’s majority stake in ZDL.

Executives with the struggling St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, N.J., filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, with officials blaming uncertainties surrounding the state's long review of the proposed sale of the facility, NJ.com reported yesterday. "We've done everything the state has asked us to do," said David Ricci, the hospital's CEO. "After two and a half years, it would appear we're no further along than when we started." The bankruptcy move was done so the hospital will continue to have enough money on hand until the expected sale to Prime Healthcare Services, a for-profit company out of California. Employees and patients should not notice any change, Ricci said. "The state remains committed to the health and well-being of Newark residents," said Donna Leusner, spokeswoman for the N.J.Department of Health. "The department has taken a reasonable and deliberative approach as it always does with certificate of need applications. Having completed multiple rounds of questions, it remains under review." She declined to provide any timetable for when that review would be concluded. Read more. 

For more on the bankruptcy proceedings related to hospital facilities, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition. 

West Virginia environmental regulators say that Patriot Coal's bankruptcy plan would leave the company with no assets to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in mine pollution cleanup, the Associated Press reported yesterday. In a bankruptcy court filing on Monday, attorneys for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)wrote that Patriot's plan would expose people to public health and safety risks. Patriot wants to close a proposed partial sale to Lexington, Kentucky-based Blackhawk Mining LLC. DEP attorneys said the plan appears to favor New York hedge funds and leave little to no ability for Patriot to pay to reclaim land and treat acid mine drainage and other water pollution. The plan also is opposed by the United Mine Workers of America because Patriot wants a judge to reject its collective bargaining agreement.

Energy Future Holdings Corp.'s deal to get out of bankruptcy fast was met with a barrage of criticism Tuesday from creditors who say they'll be left holding the bag if the deal at the heart of the turnaround falls through, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Unveiled on Monday, the Dallas energy company's new bankruptcy plan is built around the $12.1 billion sale of its stake in Oncor, a cash-generating, regulated transmission business, to investors including Hunt Consolidated Inc. and investors including junior creditors from one of its two main divisions, the so-called "T-side" of the company. Unsecured creditors from Energy Future's other main division, the "E-side," attacked the deal at a court hearing Tuesday, saying it's no more than a "free option" to buy Oncor that leaves E-side creditors with the risk the deal will fail. Energy Future filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2014 with $42 billion in debt to resolve. The proposed takeover of Oncor is billed as a peaceful and speedy outcome to a bankruptcy that has been marked by contention.

Response Genetics Inc. sought chapter 11 protection with plans to sell its cancer diagnostics business to a rival for $14 million, subject to higher bids at a court-overseen auction, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Los Angeles company on Sunday filed its chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., citing declining reimbursement rates for medical tests as being among the setbacks that contributed to its financial distress. Cancer Genetics Inc. would serve as stalking-horse bidder at an auction of nearly all of Response Genetics' assets, court papers show. Cancer Genetics is offering $7 million in cash and $7 million worth of its shares as part of its bid, in addition to its pledge to take on certain liabilities.

The owner of one time mail-order music giant Columbia House filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, seeking to sell what remains of its business after almost two decades of declining revenue, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Filmed Entertainment Inc. filed for chapter 11 at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, citing the advent of digital music and dramatic changes in technology that are threatening to render CDs and DVDs obsolete. Since peaking in 1996 at about $1.4 billion, revenue has declined almost every year since, according to FEI director Glenn Langberg. Last year, net revenue was just $17 million.

A group of companies that say they are owed millions from Miller Energy Resources Inc.’s Alaska subsidiary is trying to push the unit into bankruptcy after a securities regulator charged the company with accounting fraud, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Creditors of Miller’s Cook Inlet Energy LLC subsidiary, filed an involuntary chapter 11 petition on Thursday against the oil and gas company driller in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Anchorage. The creditors — Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc., M-I LLC, Schlumberger Tech. Corp. — claim that the Alaska subsidiary owes them about $2.8 million, according to court papers. Executives at Miller plan to fight the request and restructure the company’s debt without bankruptcy, said Chief Executive Carl Giesler.

Texas-based utility Energy Future Holdings Corp. is looking to get out of bankruptcy by way of a $12.2 billion deal focused on its valuable Oncor electricity-transmission business, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The proposed transaction was made official yesterday in a revised chapter 11 exit plan filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The new plan is expected to expedite the big bankruptcy case, with the first confirmation hearing moving up to October from January, as originally scheduled. The sale of Oncor, the key component of the new plan, would guarantee full payment to the creditors of the unit that owns it. Under the plan, Energy Future’s other unit — which comprises its electricity generating and retailing businesses — would be spun off into a separate company. The Dallas energy giant sought chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2014, hoping a pre-packaged restructuring of its $42 billion debt load would gain sufficient support from creditors to carry the plan to court approval. The first plan fell apart, leaving Energy Future struggling to find a path out of bankruptcy that wouldn’t doom it to years of litigation. Among the chief backers of the new turnaround plan are creditors who were the most vocal opponents of Energy Future’s original restructuring strategy.

The Mohave County supervisors approved a settlement Thursday in the Mineral Park bankruptcy case, The Mohave Valley Daily News reported yesterday. The county will receive $4,453,235, minus about $445,000 in surcharges, in the Mineral Park, Inc. v. Arizona Department of Revenue and Mohave County bankruptcy case. The $445,000 in surcharges is from bank fees. Another about $400,000 will go to attorneys’ fees and fees for expert witnesses. That leaves the county about $3.6 million, of which about 16 percent, or about $600,000 to $700,000 will go to the county’s general fund with the rest going to the county’s taxing entities. The copper mine filed for bankruptcy in August 2014, and had owed about $15.4 million in property tax revenue for the past five to six years.